Journal article
PERSISTENT GRAVITATIONAL RADIATION from GLITCHING PULSARS
A Melatos, JA Douglass, TP Simula
Astrophysical Journal | Published : 2015
Abstract
Quantum mechanical simulations of neutron star rotational glitches, triggered by vortex avalanches in the superfluid stellar interior, reveal that vortices pin nonaxisymmetrically to the crust during the intervals between glitches. Hence a glitching neutron star emits a persistent current quadrupole gravitational wave signal at the star's rotation frequency, whose interglitch amplitude is constant and determined by the avalanche history since birth. The signal can be detected in principle by coherent searches planned for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO), whether or not a glitch occurs during the observation, if the power-law distribution of glitch sizes extends ..
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Funding Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Australian Research Council. A.M. thanks Ira Wasserman for privileged early access to a preprint calculating the gravitational radiation from superfluid vortex clusters and applying the result to low-mass X-ray binaries.